[VIDEO] James Lacy — Why CA Gas Prices Remain Sky-High

James Lacy, author of Taxifornia, explains to Fox Business’ Stuart Varney how CA’s over-the-top environmental regulations cause the state’s gas prices to soar above the rest of the nation.

Via: California Political Review

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[VIDEO] Week Ahead: July Jobs Report

The July jobs report is the highlight of next week’s economic calendar with the Federal Reserve watching closely for sustained momentum in the all-important labor sector.

The labor market is coming off a string of strong monthly reports with the headline unemployment rate dropping to 5.3% in June, its lowest level in 7 years, and a monthly average of 250,000 jobs created during the past 12 months.

Another positive report is expected – analysts are predicting about 200,000 new jobs in July and that the unemployment rate will tick higher to 5.4%. The report will be released by the U.S. Labor Department on Friday.

“The US economy is expected to add 200,000 jobs in July. Gains will likely be concentrated in healthcare, food services, and professional and business services. The unemployment rate should drift higher as the labor force increases,” said analysts at IHS Global Insight.

But what Federal Reserve policy makers will be watching closely is wage growth. Despite all the otherwise positive data related to labor markets, wage growth has remained stubbornly weak.

Without robust wage growth inflation will have a hard time reaching the Fed’s 2% target level.

Also on tap next week is July automotive sales, a report on construction spending, personal income and outlays data and the ISM Manufacturing Index, all out Monday; a report on international trade is due Wednesday;  and a report on consumer spending is out Friday.

According to analysts at HIS Global Insight: “Both personal consumption and personal income likely rose 0.2% in June. The trade deficit likely widened, to $44.0 billion, as goods exports fell modestly while goods imports increased. Construction spending likely increased by 1.0%, with gains in both private and public construction spending.

Via: Fox Business

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Sheriff Clarke Schools Rahmbo

Chicago Mayor and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is famous for saying that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste since it allows you to do things you might not be able to get done except for the emotions of the moment spurring calls to action.

Chicago’s bloody Memorial Day weekend, which saw a dozen people killed -- including a four-year-old-girl -- certainly proved no exception to Rahm’s Rule as he called for, wait for it, stricter gun control as he spoke at a luncheon honoring police officers for valor and service. “It’s not just about how many police you have, it’s about the quantity of guns that are on the street so we actually have gun laws that back up the men and women we just recognized,” Emanuel said.

This delusional sentiment warning that otherwise inanimate objects are the problem was echoed by White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest after a bloody holiday weekend in Baltimore saw 29 shot and nine killed:

When asked about the violence yesterday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest suggested more gun control was one of the solutions.
“Obviously there’s some common sense things we could do -- certainly passage of some gun safety laws in Congress that could keep guns out of the hands of criminals would be one thing that we could do to try to limit the violence,” Earnest said.

In response to this liberal talking point, which ignores the fact that Democratic bastions like Chicago and Maryland have the strictest gun control laws in the nation, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke went on Fox Business Network’s Lou Dobbs to say that Rahmbo, a nicknamed earned for his White House ruthlessness,  was shooting blanks in suggesting the problem was guns and not the criminals who use them:

Sheriff Clarke describes Emanuel as “dead wrong,” observing that “he must have gone to the same school that ‘president’ Barack Obama did on how to run a law enforcement agency. This is what happens when you have community organizers and academic elites and others who don’t know a thing about policing in the American ghetto start to dabble in police science.”
He says the cities experiencing these heightened levels of violence “might as well get used to it because this is what you’re going to have as long as you’re going to try to turn cops into social workers and you’re going to try to get them to emphasize de-escalation and more dialogue instead of going on the offensive to go after some very dangerous individuals.”

Via: American Thinker

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Carville: Blame Obama, Not Republicans

Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville said the president is to blame for the blundered Obamacare debut, not Republicans.

 

Interviewed by Fox Business Network today, Carville said, “I think the president has himself to blame as much as anybody. I don't think he was done in, in this instance by the Republicans, or done in by the media, done in by anything.”

He also defended former boss Bill Clinton’s criticism of Obama over the president’s broken promise about Americans keeping their health insurance plans under Obamacare, but said the former president should have used kinder language.

Via: Washington Examiner

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HURRICANE SANDY AID BILL INCLUDES $150 MILLION FOR ALASKAN FISHERIES

One out of every $20 spent in a new bill to aid victims of Hurricane Sandy will go to "non-relief-related pork," says American Majority Action Spokesman Ron Meyer in an email to Breitbart News.

On Friday, the U.S. Senate passed a $60.4 billion bill that contains expenditures for areas that were unaffected by the storm, including $2 million roof repairs for Smithsonian Institution museums, $150 million for Alaskan fisheries disasters, and $58 million in taxpayer dollars to plant trees on private property in areas where Sandy never touched down.  Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) attempted to remove the $150 million fisheries “pork” spending from the bill, but his amendment was defeated.  Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) tried to strike down the tree subsidies but his amendment failed as well.

“It’s disgraceful to load a bill like this that has good motives, that has good intentions that is going to help people, with pork,” said Mr. Meyer on Fox Business.  “Why are you putting your own projects in it? It’s disgraceful.  It’s typical of Washington.”

Particularly troubling, says Mr. Meyer, is the fact that 85% of the bill’s allocations do not kick in until after 2014.  “That’s not immediate relief,” says Meyer.

The bill passed the Senate on a 61-33 vote.  Twelve Republicans supported the bill.

Via: Breitbart

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Last jobs report before election shows economy in 'virtual standstill'

The final monthly jobs report before Election Day offered a mixed bag of economic evidence that quickly became political putty for the presidential candidates, with the unemployment rate ticking up to 7.9 percent but the economy adding a better-than-expected 171,000 jobs. 

At the same time, the number of unemployed grew by 170,000, roughly the same amount -- to 12.3 million. 

The October numbers allow President Obama to argue the economy is technically growing under his watch. But they also allow Mitt Romney to argue that the new jobs are not making much of a dent in the unemployment problem. Both campaigns quickly set to work putting their spin on data that, if nothing else, underscores the slow pace of the recovery. 

"That's 9 million jobs short of what (Obama) promised," Romney said at a rally in Wisconsin shortly before noon. "Unemployment is higher today than when Barack Obama took office." 

The rate was 7.8 percent the month Obama took office. "Today's increase in the unemployment rate is a sad reminder that the economy is at a virtual standstill," Romney said in a separate written statement. "When I'm president, I'm going to make real changes that lead to a real recovery, so that the next four years are better than the last." 

Former Bureau of Labor Statistics chief Keith Hall told Fox Business Network that at this rate, "we're still talking nine or 10 years" before the economy gets back to normal. 

But Obama, speaking in Hilliard, Ohio, pointed to the report as another sign the economy is moving in the right direction, despite the challenges remaining. 

Via: Fox News

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“Another Broken Promise, Mr. President?”

Right now, President Obama and Mitt Romney are looking for the one line that will stand out as the defining line of the debate, a line that encapsulates the candidate’s reason for running and all his frustrations with the other guy. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a solution for the nation’s problems. But it does have to immediately resonate with voters. 

In 1980, the quip that stood out was challenger Ronald Reagan’s dismissive, “There you go again...” to President Carter. Folks knew exactly what Reagan meant: that we had seen through Carter’s attempts to attack Reagan’s supposedly “radical tendencies” as a dodge to distract voters from Carter’s responsibility for an ever-weakening America.

This time around it’s a safe bet that President Obama will try out another quip to further characterize Romney as an out-of-touch millionaire. It’s much less clear what quip the Romney team is looking for. His campaign has suffered from lack of clarity all along. The debates would be the perfect moment to fix on one. And frankly, we think we have one, based on the president’s own record.

During the debate on Wednesday night, President Obama will undoubtedly be asked to defend his record. Mr. Romney will be asked to respond. When he does, Romney should wait a beat -- as Ronald Reagan knew how to do so well -- and ask: “Another broken promise, Mr. President?”

Most Americans need to be reminded of just how many promises this president has broken. When you truly believe the government can fix almost anything, you’re bound to promise much more than can be fulfilled. Thus, Romney has a rich field to plow. The only problem will be brevity, because there are so many examples. But allow me to mention a few, each one of which could be condensed and followed by the refrain: “Another broken promise, Mr. President?”

Via: Fox Business

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